Mark finally looked at the soldier again. “Okay. I’m okay. Sorry.”
“Good. That’s better.” Alec took a step back and studied the ground. “It’s getting light enough now. We need to find any sign of what path they took—broken branches, footprints, cleared undergrowth, whatever. Start searching.”
Mark did, desperate to get his mind occupied with something other than imagining every horrible scenario possible. The sounds of the fire and the occasional scream or laugh still floated through the air, but they seemed distant. At least for the moment.
He swept the area, carefully studying every spot before he dared take another step, his head swiveling up and down, side to side, like some kind of robotic scavenger unit. All they needed was one major clue and then they could probably pick up the trail more easily. Mark felt an almost competitive vibe take over him—he wanted to be the one to find something first. He had to, to make himself feel better, to feel like they’d been set on a path to relieve his panicked thoughts.
He couldn’t lose Trina. Not now.
Alec was working about twenty feet farther outside the camp, actually on his hands and knees and literally sniffing along like a dog. He looked ridiculous, but there was something about it that touched Mark. The old grizzly bear rarely showed the slightest hint of emotion—unless he was yelling or screaming or pounding on something … or someone—but he often showed how much he genuinely cared. Mark had no doubt the man would give his life today if it meant saving one of their three missing friends. Could Mark say the same about himself?
Both Mark and Alec came across obvious signs of passage—broken twigs, shoe impressions in the dirt, shifted branches on trees or bushes—but each time they concluded that they’d been the ones who’d caused it. After a half hour or so, this made Mark realize that they were combing the area between the camp and the direction they’d gone last night. He stopped and stood up straight.
“Hey, Alec,” he said.
The man was on his hands and knees, leaning his face into the middle of a bush; he grunted something that kind of sounded like a “Yeah?”
“Why are we spending so much time on this side of where we left them?”
Alec pulled himself out of the bush and looked back at him. “Seemed logical. I’d think they either followed us out of here to find us, or they were taken by the same yahoos who attacked us. Or … maybe they went to investigate the fire.”
Mark thought that was all barking up the wrong tree. “Or they ran away from the fire. Not every person on earth is as wacky-brained as you, good sir. Most people see a huge roaring inferno coming at them? They decide to cut and run. Just saying.”
“No, I don’t think so.” Alec had shifted all his weight to his knees, stretching his back. “Lana’s not a coward. She wouldn’t save herself and leave us to die.”
Mark was shaking his head before the soldier even finished. “You’ve gotta think this through. Lana has the same worship complex of you that you have of her. She’ll think you are safe and taking care of yourself just fine and dandy. She’d also consider the circumstances top to bottom and decide the best course of action to take. Am I right or am I right?”
Alec shrugged, then glared at him. “So you think after all that, Lana would leave us to die at the hands of some crazies and run for her life?”
“She didn’t know we were in the hands of people like that. We told her we were just going to take a look, remember? Then she probably heard more sounds, heard and saw the fire coming. I bet she went monster logic on us and decided she better run toward the Berg headquarters and that we’d decided the same thing. Rendezvous there. You did point out the general direction we needed to go.”
Alec was nodding and grumbling, impossible to read.
“Not to mention that she has a civilian”—he made quotation marks in the air when he said that last word—“and a little girl who’s probably terrified. I highly doubt Lana would leave them alone to come after us or take the others closer to danger.”
Alec got to his feet and brushed the dirt off his knees. “Okay, boy, you can quit going on about it. You sold me. But … what’s your point?” He had the slightest smile on his face, barely there. And Mark knew why. The bear was enjoying this—watching his pupil figure things out on his own.
Mark pointed to the other side of the camp, toward the spot Alec had identified the day before as the direction they needed to go. The headquarters of that Berg awaited. The place where they’d find the people who had ruined their lives once again.
“Like I said,” Alec spoke with an exaggerated sigh, “you sold me. Come on, let’s start looking over there.” He winked at Mark as he walked past but then gave him a scowl.
Mark laughed. “You are one strange little man.”
Alec stopped and faced him. “That’s what my mama used to say. She’d wake me up in the morning, give me a little kiss and a hug, and she’d say, ‘My sweet Alec. You are one strange little man.’ Got to me every time, right here.” He patted his heart, then rolled his eyes dramatically. “Let’s get to work.”
“See?” Mark said as he followed. “Do I need any more proof? Strange. Little. Man. Officially proven.”
“You got one word right. I’m definitely a man. I’m all man, baby.” He let out a strangled choking sound that might’ve been a laugh.
They stepped more carefully when they made it to the area Mark had indicated, and soon they were back at it, searching every square inch for a telltale sign of a trail. Mark paused to take in the sounds that had become background noise, barely there until you focused on it. The roaring, crackling, spitting forest fire, still safely distant but getting closer, and the occasional hoot or holler or laugh of their new unfriendly friends. Again, safely distant—though it was hard to tell where the sounds were coming from. The air had begun to look hazy from the smoke now that the sun was up to reveal it.
“Found something,” Alec announced. “Be careful!” he yelled when Mark tramped over to see for himself.
“Oh. Sorry.” He slowed down and crept over to stand next to the soldier.
Alec was on his knees, leaning back on his feet. He had a stick in his hand and used it as a pointer. “There’s about three bushes in a row that’ve been walked through, and by more than one person for sure. See the smashed part there, the broken branch there, the footsteps here and there.” He gestured at one nearby.
Mark leaned forward and saw it. Small. Just the right size for Deedee.
“There’s only one problem,” Alec continued, something heavy in his voice.
“What?” Mark asked quickly.
Alec used the stick to poke a spot—just above the ground where the others had passed—of leaves clumped together. Their shiny green faces had been sprayed with small drops of blood.
CHAPTER 29
Mark didn’t allow himself to have the same panic attack this time. But he went dead silent, his insides cold and his hands slicked with sweat. He imagined that his face was pale, too. But he forced himself to remain calm as Alec stood and slowly made his way along the trail they’d found.
With growing dismay Alec pointed out more spots of blood along the path. There wasn’t much, but there was enough to see. “It’s hard to say how serious an injury we’re talking about. I’ve seen bloody noses spurt this much out, but I’ve also seen a guy with his arm blown off who hardly bled a drop. The explosion cauterized him right clean.”
“Not … helping,” Mark muttered.
Alec shot a glance back at him. “Sorry, kid. I’m trying to say I don’t think this is all bad news. Whoever’s hurt might just have a bad cut. People have survived more blood loss than this many a time. If anything, maybe it’ll help us keep on their trail.”
Alec moved on again, his head swinging back and forth as he walked, taking it all in. Mark followed on his heels, trying hard not to look at the trail of blood. He just couldn’t. Not until his nerves settled a bit. He hoped this wasn’t some kind of wild-goose chase or, worse, a trap.
“Anything else that lets us know it’s definitely Trina and them?” he asked.
Alec stopped and leaned far down to examine some dirt next to a trampled bush. “Based on the pattern, I’d say it’s our pretty little group that came through here—I can see their footsteps well enough. And …” He flicked a nervous glance backward.
“And what?”
“Well … I haven’t seen Deedee’s in a while, so my guess is that someone started carrying the poor thing back there.” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder.
“So maybe she’s the one who got hurt,” Mark concluded, the thought of it making his stomach fall. “Maybe … maybe she just fell and skinned a knee or something.”
“Yeah,” Alec replied numbly. “But the other thing is …”
Mark had never seen the man so hesitant to speak before. “Would you just spit it out, man? What’s going on?”
“When they came through here,” Alec said quietly, seemingly oblivious to Mark’s rebuke, “they were definitely running. And running pell-mell. All the signs add up. The length of their strides, the smashed bushes, the broken shrubbery and branches.” He met Mark’s eyes. “Like they were being chased.”
That gave Mark a lump in the back of his throat, until he remembered something. “But you just said you could only see three sets of footprints. Is there any sign that somebody might’ve been going after them?”
Alec looked up, then pointed. “Things fly around these parts, remember?”
As if they needed one more thing to worry about. “Don’t you think we would’ve heard if a Berg came swooping in and chased our friends down the mountain?”
“In the middle of what we just got done with? Maybe not. Might’ve been something besides a Berg, anyway.”
Mark gave another weary glance upward. “Let’s just keep moving.”
The two of them followed the path, Mark hoping the whole time they didn’t find more blood. Or worse.
The signs of Trina, Lana and Deedee’s passage continued into a long, low ravine that made its way toward an almost hidden canyon. Mark hadn’t noticed the walls of the mountains to their sides getting taller, and the slope was gradual enough that he didn’t really feel like they were descending very quickly. Especially being surrounded by the woods and spending most of his time studying the land for clues and traces of their friends. But one minute they were traveling along through a thick copse of trees and the next they came out into a wide clearing bordered by canyon walls of gray granite. They were so steep that only a little vegetation grew in small clumps here and there.
Alec pulled out his handwritten map and stopped. “We’re here.” He made Mark step back and hid the two of them behind the large trunk of an oak.
“Really?”
“Almost certain this valley is where that Berg returned after every trip.”
Mark peeked around the tree and examined the tall, foreboding walls. “A little dangerous to fly down into this place, don’tcha think?”
“Maybe, but also perfect to hide yourself. There has to be a landing zone somewhere close, and an entrance to wherever they call home. I still think it might be an old government bunker. Especially being this close to Asheville—the city is just on the other side of this canyon.”
“Yeah.” Something was troubling Mark. “So … what’re the odds that Lana and them would get chased this far? I’m really worried they got taken.”
“Maybe not. Lana knows that wandering around the mountains looking for us wouldn’t amount to a hill of beans. Better to make a beeline for the one spot that’s most obviously a rendezvous point. Here.”
“Then where are they?”
Alec didn’t answer—something had caught his attention out in the clearing.
“We might both be right,” he finally whispered. His gravelly voice sounded ominous.
“What is it?”
“Stay low and follow me.”
Alec got on his hands and knees and crawled out from around the tree, keeping under the line of shrubs and bushes. Mark did the same and followed him out into the clearing, certain that a Berg was going to come barreling in with dart guns over their heads any second. They kept to the barely discernible path where Mark assumed Trina and the others had walked. At first he had thought that maybe the Bergs landed in the clearing, but there was no sign of such a spot whatsoever—the vegetation had grown pretty thick.
Alec hacked his way through it for about thirty feet, then stopped. Mark poked his head around the man and saw that there was a large spot where the bushes had been trampled and crushed. An obvious sign of struggle. His heart dropped.
“Oh, no” was all he could get out.
Alec’s head hung low. He shifted to crouch even lower. “You were right. Somebody took them here, no doubt. Look—the bushes are beat to death on the other side. Like twenty people marched across it.”
Mark had to push down the panic again. “So what do we do? Go back and hide or go after them?”
“Not so loud, kid. Or they’re gonna be on top of us, too.”
“Let’s just go back,” Mark whispered. “Regroup, decide what to do.” He had the urge to chase after the trail, but his wiser side told him they needed to think it through first.
“We don’t have time to—”
A loud clanging sound cut the man off, a metallic bang that shot through the air like a cannon. Mark dropped to his stomach, half expecting the canyon walls to come crashing down on top of him.
